[JWish]

We have been staying in our TV home for a few weeks off and on for the last few years but are planning to stay for 3 months this winter. 😄

Should we just have the post office forward our mail for those months? How reliable is it, and do you always get your important mail?

Would it be better to have a mail service receive our mail then forward what we want?

How do other snowbirds manage their mail for long stays?

Thanks!

[Shorebirds]

We used the USPS service of collecting the mail and sending to us once a week, can become a little pricy, plus we had other peoples mail sent to us, wasn't totally efficient. Now we change important addresses with individual companies, etc, and also put in a forwarding request with USPS, This seems to be the best solution for us.

[Pugchief]

The USPS is unreliable. That is not changing any time soon, probably ever.

The solution is to do everything you possibly can online. Get most of your bills by email. Set up direct deposit and direct debit and/or use billpay. This reduces your snail mail to 98% advertisements and junk.

For the remaining 2%, we forward UpNorth mail to TV when we are in FL and forward TV mail to UpNorth in the summer. It mostly works. The less important mail you get, the less of an issue it becomes.

[JWish]

Originally Posted by Pugchief

The USPS is unreliable. That is not changing any time soon, probably ever.

The solution is to do everything you possibly can online. Get most of your bills by email. Set up direct deposit and direct debit and/or use billpay. This reduces your snail mail to 98% advertisements and junk.

For the remaining 2%, we forward UpNorth mail to TV when we are in FL and forward TV mail to UpNorth in the summer. It mostly works. The less important mail you get, the less of an issue it becomes.

When you say you forward the remaining 2%, is that standard USPS mail forward request? From what I read on the post office site, they don’t forward commercial advertisements, etc. Does that get you the remaining 2%, or are you changing address back and forth with each provider?

We do almost everything online, but you never know when something important will get mailed to you. I just don’t want to wait 3 months to find out! Thanks again.

[JWish]

Thank you, this is helpful!

[JWish]

Originally Posted by Shorebirds

We used the USPS service of collecting the mail and sending to us once a week, can become a little pricy, plus we had other peoples mail sent to us, wasn't totally efficient. Now we change important addresses with individual companies, etc, and also put in a forwarding request with USPS, This seems to be the best solution for us.

Thank you, this is helpful!

[ElDiabloJoe]

I have no firsthand experience, but I have heard a service like travellingmailbox.com has been helpful to some.Affordable Virtual Mailbox | Traveling Mailbox

[smurphy]

We have tried to minimize the amount of mail we get by doing everything online, bot for what we can't do online we use the standard USPS forwarding. I request the forwarding at usps.com and request it start about 5 days before we leave. That way I can be sure that delivery has stopped at our house. It takes about a week before the items arrive. They only forward First class and magazines will only be forwarded about a month so you have to submit address changes with the publisher.

In order to prevent double forwarding, I stop the forwarding about a week before we return and put in a temp hold so the mail is not out in the box until we return.

I highly recommend you sign up for the free USPS Informed Delivery service. I get a daily email with pictures of the outside of every piece to be delivered. I set up an account for both houses and I know what is coming. It does take the surprise out of going to the mailbox, however.

[retiredguy123]

I would just use the USPS website and forward the mail. Three months is a long time.

[Pugchief]

Originally Posted by JWish

When you say you forward the remaining 2%, is that standard USPS mail forward request? From what I read on the post office site, they don’t forward commercial advertisements, etc. Does that get you the remaining 2%, or are you changing address back and forth with each provider?

We do almost everything online, but you never know when something important will get mailed to you. I just don’t want to wait 3 months to find out! Thanks again.

Correct. Standard forwarding service. The junk mail and ads don't come, only first class mail. It costs $1.10 to set up each time, and the maximum duration is 6 months.

[asianthree]

We no longer get any mail that’s important, everything is online. We did forward one year, and multiple things got lost. It’s not worth the grief.

Our granddaughter stops once a week, at our northern home, opens anything important and sends a pic. The rest she shreds.

Pay a neighbor it’s worth it and safer.

[Velvet]

Same. I get stuff online. Bills etc. I can’t remember the last time I used the postal service for anything other than packages.

[tophcfa]

Originally Posted by Pugchief

The USPS is unreliable. That is not changing any time soon, probably ever.

The solution is to do everything you possibly can online. Get most of your bills by email. Set up direct deposit and direct debit and/or use billpay. This reduces your snail mail to 98% advertisements and junk.

For the remaining 2%, we forward UpNorth mail to TV when we are in FL and forward TV mail to UpNorth in the summer. It mostly works. The less important mail you get, the less of an issue it becomes.

We do the exact same thing, except we simply put our mail on hold for the whole winter, and early spring, and deal with the remaining 2% when we return. Only once we got a small penalty for late payment of a bill, our quarterly property tax bill up north. Our small hill towns archaic website doesn’t allow setting up autopay, so now I call the tax accessors office from the Villages and get the bill information and send them a check from the Villages during the winter. The post office is only supposed to hold the mail for thirty days, but an annual box of chocolates for the women working in our small towns post office solves that problem.

[dewilson58]

We used USPS for years and they did a great job.

No issues.

[GoRedSox!]

We did put a forwarding order in up north, and then canceled it a week before we left The Villages. We found out that the only post office we could do that at in The Villages was way up north near Spanish Springs in Lady Lake I think.

We get a lot of mail up north, and most of it is junk mail. I'm not sure what happens to the mail, but the stuff that shows up in FL does not have all that junk mail in it. We did get everything that could be considered important.

We don't get much junk mail at all at our Villages address. I'm not sure why.